On nearly all of the political fronts, the Republicans under Trump are in a steady retreat, backing away from core policies that have outraged their base and empowered the Democrats with an army of new supporters. The GOP suffered an extraordinary midterm repudiation – losing not just the House and Senate, but statewide offices in red states, from Texas to Kansas to South Carolina, that Democrats hadn’t won in decades.

Exactly how deep the humiliating loss was for the MAGA camp became clear in a sit-down interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday. The American leader conceded that his deportation policy “might be too tough” and that he would “love to do something on immigration” with the Democrats about to take over Congress, he told the news program in his first interview since the midterms.

Asked by CBS correspondent Ross Douthat whether the crackdown damaged Republicans in the midterms, Trump was ambivalent: “I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out.” “But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs that created one violation for breaking of the law. And that was that they came into the country illegally.”

Douthat then asked: “So you think your deportation policy went too far?” “It was too tough,” Trump said. “I think it might be too tough. Yeah.”

He said the deal he has in mind with Democrats is “something that’s actually doable”: “some kind of legal status for the landscapers,” and for people like a hotel maid or waitress who are suddenly “taken out of the country.” “It’s tough,” he said. “It’s a tough thing.”

Trump admitted that the hardcore........

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